


Lover Boy

by thekumquat



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)
Genre: overprotective turtles, vern check yourself before you wreck yourself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 23:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7484022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekumquat/pseuds/thekumquat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the first movie, Vern hits on April at every opportunity. In Out of the Shadows, he's strictly business. I figure there's a reason for that. Three big, green reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lover Boy

_It’s good to be the king_.

That was the thought on Vernon Fenwick’s mind as he made his way home. All he’d done was go buy groceries. Four people had asked for autographs. Two really hot chicks had given him their number (just one number, which was delightfully intriguing). The owner himself had come out to shake Vern’s hand and get a picture.

Vern could seriously get used to this.

He dumped his groceries on the counter and glanced around his apartment. It was nice…but was it _savior of the city_ nice? The man who had brought down the Foot deserved something really nice. A view of the Hudson, maybe. A penthouse downtown.

He continued to ponder the problem as he made himself a drink – Jack on the rocks. He hated whiskey and he hated it even more straight. But it was the kind of thing _The Falcon_ would enjoy, and Vern had a reputation to uphold now.

Vern stepped out onto his balcony. He’d always considered himself blessed to have one, especially in this neighborhood, but now he was looking at it with a more discerning eye. Not much of a view at all.

“Hey Vern.”

Vern wasn’t entirely sure if he was imagining it or not – it was really hard to hear over the agony of accidentally inhaling whiskey up his nose – but he was sure he heard snickering.

When he got himself under control, he glared up at the brothers green. They grinned down at him from the balconies above. Oddly, it was just three of them.  Usually they were a packaged set.

“Where’s the orange one?” he asked.

“Mikey’s with April,” Donnie said.  

“And Dad’s chaperoning,” added Leo. Vern remembered “Happy Together” and thought that was probably a good idea.

“Can I help you?” he asked. His eyes locked onto Donnie. “Are you here to apologize for blowing up my car?”

Their faces went blank. Then they glanced at each other.

Unbelievable. It hadn’t even occurred to these little goblins that _destroying a man’s car_ was something they should feel bad about.

Then the turtles smiled. They were bright, happy smiles that made warning lights go off in Vern’s head. If April had been there she’d have absolutely melted, but April was dangerously blind when it came to these four brats.

“Yeah,” Leo said. “We wanted to apologize. Right Donnie?”

“Oh yeah! Totally! I’m really sorry. Should have labeled those buttons better.”

“Promise it won’t happen again,” Raph said. “Honest.”

Leo swung down to land on the railing beside Vern. Raph followed him, landing a little too heavily and a little too closely to Vern for comfort. Donnie clambered down, longs arms and legs making him look like some sort of weird spider-turtle.

“Now that we have that out of the way, let’s have a little chat.”

“Uh…chat, chat about what?” He scooted a few steps away from Raphael, who just followed him. At that distance, which was to say hardly any distance, it felt like being menaced by a wall.

“You know that little back and forth you have with April?” Leo asked.

“Uhhh… I don’t—“

“You know,” Donnie piped up helpfully. “Where you hit on her and it’s super awkward and clumsy and it flies right over her head and she doesn’t notice?”

“Well I wouldn’t say she doesn’t _notice_ , exactly, it’s sort of a, a subtle little, you know, we’re not _overt_ or anything but she definitely— “

“No,” Raph said. “She doesn’t.”

“Okay, but your brother—“

“When Mikey does it, she thinks it’s cute,” Leo interrupted. “You’re _slightly_ less obvious about it than he is, so she hasn’t noticed yet.”

“We aim to keep it that way,” Raph said.

They’re teenagers, Vern reminded himself. They’re fifteen. They’re _kids_.

“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” he asked, glaring at Raph. The fact that he had to tilt his head all the way back to meet the turtle’s eyes did not exactly help him feel more in control of the situation.

“It means you back off, lover boy,” Raph growled.

“April’s not interested.”

“You just said she didn’t know—!”

“Irrelevent,” Donnie said, sounding entirely too sure for a guy who’d grown up in a sewer and hadn’t even seen a woman til a month ago. “She’s objectively out of your league in every way.”

Vern sputtered, trying to come up with a response and utterly failing because he could barely grasp the fact that he was having this conversation in the first place.  

“Donnie would know. He made up a list. Do you wanna hear the list?” Leo asked.

“No I don’t want to- Does she know you’re here?”

“She doesn’t _need_ to know,” Raph said. “The important thing is, we’re here.”

“Vern,” Leo said. Vern spun around to face him. “We’re not here to threaten you. “

“Wait, we’re not?” Raph sounded genuinely confused.

Donnie whispered “Leo, I thought you said-“

“We’re not here to threaten,” Leo repeated, a little louder. “We’re just here to recommend a course of action.”

“Well _I’m_ here to threaten,” Raph said. He jabbed Vern in the chest. “Quit hitting on April. It ain’t cute, it ain’t slick, and it _ain’t_ gonna work.”

“If you upset her, you deal with us,” Donnie said. It shouldn’t have sounded intimidating coming from a gangly, spectacled nerd. Unless you remembered that said nerd was six foot eight and armed at all times.

“April’s family,” Leo said. “We want her to be happy. And you would not make her happy. Get it?”

Vern nodded, mouth dry. There was a silence as the boys stared at him expectantly. There was something very dark in their eyes. They were teenagers, he thought, but they were also trained warriors.

They’d killed men in those mountains. They’d done it without hesitation.

“Got it,” he managed to croak. “Very clear. Understood.”

 And just like that, everyone relaxed.

“Great!” Leo said. He clapped Vern on the back. “Glad we got this all sorted out. C’mon guys, we gotta get home before Mikey tries to propose.”

“Again,” Donnie sighed.

They launched themselves into the darkness and were gone.

Vern poured his whiskey out onto the floor of the balcony. He went inside. He fixed himself a screwdriver and said “Apartment downtown. With no balcony and windows that don’t open. Yeah.”


End file.
